This isn't necessarily specific to zettelkasten but since we like to have atomic notes be titled with sentences, and since I have mild ADHD and struggle to read long walls of text (even though I write them myself... I've been reading my own past writings and doing this...), I decided to rewrite everything I read as an outline, even breaking down individual sentences into component parts and outlining them.

What I'm finding is that this actually clarifies meaning much more than I thought, if I do it right, and shows me what the key points are and what is incidental or supporting evidence etc. To be honest, it feels more reasonable to me now to write everything as an outline to begin with rather than as proper prose - or just use prose as a brain dump to start and reorganize it into this kind of outline. It's so much easier to read.

Here's an example, from my own thinking last month that I'm finally getting around to trying to atomize - notice that the first line alone summarizes each entire idea or sub-idea:

• Sanctity flows downward
  • from the divine,
    • itself perhaps a religious abstraction of secular kingship
      • (the concept of gods who are above humanity,
        • as opposed to powerful otherworld beings who are merely different,
      • is unique to hierarchical societies)
  • to the mundane,
  • and then to the unholy,
  • weakening all the way.
• Religion tries to dam the downward flow of sanctity
  • into reservoirs that can be tapped and replenished
    • sacred rituals, implements, individuals, etc
  • but:
    • the more these sanctity reservoirs mix with common things,
    • the more they lose their holiness and have to be re-sanctified,
      • like a high temperature reservoir mixing with a low temperature one,
      • thus eliminating the temperature differential.

What do you think? This may be a bit silly / excessive, but it's so much easier than reading prose paragraphs, and I always seem to turn them into these outlines while reading them just in order to understand them!